Catsitting Was Service and It Felt Good.

 While I care for myself and keep not knocking on his door, some of the things I felt during my near-romance with The Guy Next Door deserve attention. I feel like the memories don't quite belong to me yet, like I'm still waiting for him to sign off on them by liking me back, which he doesn't. But it was still real.

On Christmas leftovers night, when he was "ready to try snuggling," I took his hand and placed it on top of my head. I expected it to feel comforting, of course, but I didn't expect to fall down a very cozy well of subbiness! I felt the switch flip and he became Him.

In Codependents Anonymous, we are definitely not supposed to let other people be our Higher Power. That's supposed to be benevolent but big and all-encompassing and largely unknowable. This feeling might have been that, but it was also the opposite- play! A role I haven't played in such a long time, and suddenly there I was. Little. Cared for. Humble. Chosen.

So when he asked me to watch Cat Next Door while he was away for New Years, it didn't feel like it sometimes feels now, like he was having his to-him-unfuckable friend watch his place while he was out of town seeing Yoga Camp Hottie. That was what was happening, but it didn't feel bad at all! Most of the week!

I said I'd be honored to watch his place, and I meant it.

The first time I went over, Cat Next Door was relaxing on TGNS's bed. The bed was spare and the bedding white, very yoga camp. I sat on the floor next to the bed to pet the cat and felt woozy with love. I wanted to crawl into bed with the cat and cuddle, but that felt like a creepy thing for a catsitting neighbor to do. He later said it would've been fine, but then, he later said a lot of things.

Every moment, crushing Cat Next Door's meds into his tuna breakfast and supper, washing the plates and spoons, just sitting in TGNS's chair keeping the cat company while read my audiobook and inhaled the scent of man and sandalwood, it all felt like I was honored to serve him. I'm sure that was not his intention at all, but that's what happened.

I looked at my art and Tarot cards front and center on his fridge door, and I felt he's mine and I'm his. When I left the porch light on for myself and locked the door for the night, I felt in my place. Where I belonged.

Submissive or no, I don't do neighbor-favors half-assed, so though he'd told me I didn't have to scoop the litterbox, I sure did! Kneeling in front of it doing objectively the worst chore, I felt peaceful, seen. Even though it was SO STINKY! 

He's an old cat who misses a lot and there was a pink towel in front of the litterbox that got soaked with pee by the end of the week. I took it home and washed it with a heart full of love and hope.

I'd told him I was having subby feelings after our first cuddle, but I don't think he ever really got how badly I wanted to serve him.

I'm telling you this to honor my submissive self- it was so lovely to see her. I hope she'll be around again soon, in much happier and healthier circumstances. It just felt so good.

Autistic Euphoria and the Guy Next Door: Part Two

 On Thursday evenings during the busy part of the year, I try to stop everything and make some art. Whenever I want to get to know somebody, friend or date, I invite them to join.

The Guy Next Door came across the yard to my door with a gardening book he'd picked out from one of the VERY numerous Little Free Libraries on our surrounding blocks. He showed me an illustration of a wall garden he wanted to create "for us both to enjoy."

(Ladies and gentlehumans of the kitten jury, I submit this as evidence that I wasn't crazy for thinking he might like me back! Not that you asked to see evidence!)

He sat down at my table. I played my summer camp playlist, skipping the songs that felt too emo or too harsh for the occasion. We were doing watercolors and it was just...it was so easy. He talked so freely and I felt so comforted by how open he was about his life. Divorce, love, disappointment, sobriety (of the California sort). It felt so easy to share my own stuff back without feeling like it was too much, like I was too much.

All that sharing made me powerfully smitten, so fast! I knew I couldn't fling myself at him because I wasn't ready and he's LITERALLY my next door neighbor. (In retrospect, flinging might have been the safer choice.) Instead I made plans like this:

"If I knew you better, I'd scoop you up and take you to the beach with me on Sunday. Let's stay friends for at least a year so we can have a beach day next summer. You drive so I can be high on the way home. We'll listen to Atavista by Childish Gambino."

"Okay, I can do that!" He seemed happy to be included in my weirdly specific daydream. Art night dream.

I had tickets to a little-bit-out-of-town showing of Fire Walk With Me, my favorite David Lynch movie and maybe the second-scariest movie ever. (First place goes to The Blair Witch Project.) "If I knew you better, " I said, "I'd give you my extra ticket because (BFF Formerly Sweetie) does NOT care. I see us at a David Lynch event someday, you as the Log Lady and me as... I don't know, I'll have to pick a less obscure character than I usually do."

Typing these visions of the future, they feel more than a little nutso, but I promise, he looked so happy about these plans. He was, as they say on My Brother, My Brother, and Me, playing in the space with me.

I forgot to feel embarrassment or shame for being so enthusiastic and nakedly fascinated by him. (If there had been real nakedness, I think things might have gone better. OR worse! Who knows.)

He seemed nakedly fascinated by me too. (I wonder if that was just the fact that he was higher than me. As OCD therapy would say, maybe, maybe not.) Under his gaze, I bounced. I rocked. I fell into special interest holes and he said he was happy to fall down in there with me. I was giddy with unmasking, and he seemed to be in a giggly joyful state as well. Maybe he was. Maybe it was real, at least this part.

Mostly he sat across the table from me, but sometimes he came over next to me and we sat stonedly shoulder to shoulder. When he was leaving, he gave me a hug that just crossed the boundary over to sensual--his fingers moved over my shoulders in a desire way? Or just it was that over-familiar weedy hippie-boy hug that used to send me into an anti-Platonic tizzy in my college hometown in the mid-Nineties.

Maybe my evidence isn't incontrovertible, but I really want to convince you this wasn't just me fooling myself for the millionth time.

Yet.

From The Museum of Bad Advice to The Library of Love (And Knots.)

Before I head-argue with BetterHelp lady any more, I just want to stop and celebrate the creative surge and series of breakthroughs I’ve been experiencing during and following my Quarantine Crush adventure! I’m never sure if its super-ethical to consider people muses, (Past and present muses, feel free to weigh in! Not here because the comments are turned off.) but QC is a powerful one anyway. Since Zooming with his poetry reading, I’ve written poetry I’m excited about for the first time in years, revived an old poetry series, made however many drawings and paintings, tried new drawing styles, gotten a new perspective on my business life, and written like a jillion paragraphs here.

I even signed up to read from the Kitten Calendar at an old-fave local reading so I’d have a way to re-experience rope adventures!

Miracle of miracles, I’ve even learned to love dressing up for Zoom events, including pretty shoes for no reason!

Whether or not I can justify the tears to a narrow-minded therapist, crushes fucking WORK for me, and they often lead to more friendships as well! (Angel Face is still one of my main inspirations—he invited me to Online Goth Night on Friday and I am TOTALLY going!)

Romantic lovewise, though. I know I can’t control if I ever find the requited version again. If I don’t, I think I can probably handle it, because I almost always feel completely full of all the kinds of love in my life: friend-love, family-love, work-love, talking-about-Gilmore-Girls-love, art love, book love, nature love, and of course good old fashioned self-love. Actually, I think I’m pretty amazing at love, even as I’m still missing a person or people.

It has really struck me in the past few days how simple, how ordinary, my romantic wishes/fantasies/hopes are. I don’t think it’s crazy or demanding to hope that someday before too long a masculine person will be sending me songs for smitten reasons, not for just-friendly reasons like QC or for opportunistic predatory reasons like Bill. And maybe, just maybe, that song-sender will know all the knots.

Because of my age and other particulars, it’s easy to see my romantic hopes as lightning-strike bonkers. I sure thought of it that way while I was divorcing, but I had to make room for that imaginary guy anyway, I had to try. Such an ordinary wish, to be like-liked. It happens to people all the time. I know that I deserve it as much as anybody, that no amount of self-as-project can make it come along any faster or slower. It comes when it comes. Until I get there, I fall, I get giddy, I cry, I make art. It’s a pretty good plan.

I am WILDLY underemployed this summer, so I need some CDC-friendly adventures. I need to be always writing paragraphs. So!

1.      Learn one knot a week. Think about how much the Republicans would resent me using stimulus (ha) money on a new set of shiny peacock-blue ropes.

2.      High Fidelity without the visits. I feel pretty resolved about all of my past loves, but it would be fun to visit them in my mind and heart. Since I already lavishly paid tribute to The Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow, I’ll start with the guy after that. The guy who sang Rage Against the Machine on amusement park rides. The guy who looked like Eddie Vedder at just the right moment. The guy who was my first sex/love combination. Ohhhhh Full Name Guy, you’ll be a summer treat.

That way, until I find my next human true love(s) I’ll have all the rope-love and paragraph-love to keep me company. Thanks for reading, wish me luck!

The Generosity of Love

            I’m having trouble lately with staying mad. Mr. Makeout Music and I have (I’m almost sure) moved on from being in a fight to just taking space from each other. We’ve communicated this to each other in the most adorable way ever:

            Last Wednesday during Lego Day, he stopped in to reprimand some kids in such a protective and manly way, telling them (in his dreamy a-little-bit-mad voice) to be respectful of me and each other. I looked up from my coloring, smiled, and offered him a high five. He took it and I felt just a little more whole.

            The kids and I have been working on a kindness chain—a paper chain where each link is something kind you could do or something kind someone has done for you. He hung around and wrote like five links, the last one being “Giving people gold stars for existing.” Which is a thing that I do, so I knew he still felt friendly toward me, still thought of me as the person I was before November’s storm of grief and drama. Just that little visit was enough to start up the daydream machine again, so I’m still keeping my distance.

Saturday, though, used to be our main hang-out-and-make-art-while-he’s-supposed-to-be-working day. There may still be a stack of his art in my middle desk drawer as souvenirs. While I was getting ready for work last Saturday, I accidentally listened to the wrong toward-the-end-of Hamilton song so I went in with the achingest of hearts.

I was able to pour a lot of that love into the Thankfulness Christmas Tree I made with the kids, but I wanted to reach out to Mr. Makeout Music a little, so I made him a card with a pretty, delicate blue paper snowflake glued on and wrote:

“Space is awesome.

But/and I miss you a whole bunch.

I hope your life is full of awesome.

<3,

(me)”

Poor editing that I used the word “awesome” twice, but after I gave it to him and he was sweet and thank you-y about it, I felt a million times better and much closer to the part of myself that feels missing while I’m missing him.

It reminded me of the brave day I let myself fall for him. He gave me a paper of his to read, a paper about rising to the occasion of fatherhood. I liked it so much and felt so grateful that he’d let me read it that I COVERED the margins in gold stars, intricate pink flowers, vines, and tiny purple asterisks. (No hearts, but those would come soon enough.)

I did all this in full view of my boss and everybody. One of the kids asked what I was doing and I (only a little bit sheepishly) said “My friend let me read his homework and I really liked it.”

It’s part of my routine to sit around work and doodle while waiting for my programs to start, but I knew this time I was being a little ridiculous, a little carried away, but something just unlatched and a light shined out of my heart, golden yellow like the million stars I was drawing. Something inside me said “Give, it’s safe.” So I did. I folded it up in a #10 envelope with the library’s return address on it, like an envelope could contain the ridiculousness.

That was the first day we really talked, the first time I stood next to him and really felt next to him. I don’t’ want to reduce him to just a Muse, though he certainly IS one, but there was something about our connection, something in his generosity of spirit that made me want to give him and the world every loving thing I had. While I miss his companionship very much, I also miss being able to give and give and give—to sing out his name, to lavish him with praise (and accept his), to unabashedly hand him every piece of art I felt like making him, without feeling the need to ask (as I did with the card on Saturday) “Is this okay?” I miss and value so much the flow of it, of him, of us.

I wonder sometimes, in the midst of that glitter-storm of generosity, why it was so important that he didn’t love me back in the same ready, open way. But it is, and I know every day that I take care of myself with space and grieving is a day closer to the next love, the next unlatching.

It’s hard not knowing whether he and I will end up friends or if our whole thing is just beautiful and done, but if I can love him in little ways, if I can visit the selflessness, softness, risk and vulnerability of those first margin-doodles, maybe I can stay in touch with the me that he was drawn to, maybe even become more like her. I have a lot of thinking to do about service, submissiveness, and unconditional love, and I’m so proud of how I got to these realizations. I’ll never stop loving him for it, even as I learn to let him go.

Supersweet Election Love Story: Part One

I spent a year hardly thinking about romance at all, but there’s always a perfect character to come along and break me open again, so that cartoon hearts swirl around my head and I remember who I was born to be. Like the election, this story didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped, but I’m reopening the blog to make sure none of the gifts of this experience slip through the cracks.

I work in my local library’s afterschool program. It suits me much better than teaching because the kids and I spend most of our time on art and I never have to make anybody do anything, except be respectful and kind. I can smile all day and tell the kids “I love you” without being accused of being too soft. The library is my happy place and my biggest source of love, pride, and friendship.

About a year ago, a new security guard (I know! Me and security guards.) transferred to our branch and the first time I saw him, I thought “Yep, that’s what a man should look like.” African American, beardy, glasses, locks, sigh, swoon, giggle. One of my goals for 2016 was to flirt daily, and I felt like I’d finally found a worthy recipient. I tend to sing out my coworkers’ names, so I wholeheartedly sang out his name whenever I saw him, chatted when I could, accidentally told him how very much I like the scene from The Avengers where Black Widow breaks out of the chair.

Eventually, he started hanging around. He would spend his breaks coloring with me and the kids and talking about music, helping me build up my ongoing playlist of kid-friendly love/friendship/inspiration songs. Lord help me, he owns vinyl. He kept suggesting songs that were either too emo or so R&B dreamy that I could barely walk after listening. I made fun of him for his makeout music, but it kept finding its way onto my personal playlist, turning my early morning walks into dreamy movie-sequence mushfests.

He was with us in the children’s department whenever he could be, and started telling me apologetically when he was scheduled elsewhere. (I found out later he’d been making the schedule specially to spend time with us! <3 <3 <3) We painted galaxies, flowers, we drew mandalas. We did coloring pages that said things like “Follow Your Heart” and “Don’t Stop Believing.” He’s in college, (This is as good a time as any to tell you he’s twenty-five and I’m forty-two…) so he’d sometimes just bring down his homework, talk to me about what he was working on, and then happily let me distract me from it.

In the way that sometimes happens when you make a truly great friend, I kept telling him way more than I meant to. He became my safe space, someone I could confide in about my election struggles, my feminist rage, my religious questiness, everything that was the most important. I hope that I was doing the same for him.

I’d gone through a good spate of not caring at all what I looked like, but I started to want to look cute when I got to work. I stopped wearing shlubby T-shirts and became more likely to put on lipstick and blowdry my hair. Eventually he told me he wanted his to be the only name I sang out, and that was both very sweet and probably a bad sign.

My First Sexting

I may have mentioned this once of twice, but I’m enjoying Mr. Sweetheart so much. Last Tuesday when I was walking home from work, he texted to ask how I feel about sexting. I told him that it was on my goal list for June. (I do monthly goals with check-boxes. Some of the goals are all virtuous and gym-related, and some are…not.)

So he sent a picture of his lovely junk (First time I’d received such a text—he’s so many firsts!) and I was so happy to see it. I wrote back “For me? What shall I do with it?” but since I’m the sex-blogger he insisted that I be the one to tell most of the story.  (“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be the dominant one?” “I’m instructing you to amuse me with your creativity.”)

Clearly he is a full-service muse.

I got home and started dinner as I started to spin the story. I think I did a pretty good job. I was making tortellini. As I put the water on to boil, I told him about some fictitious Hello Kitty underpants already complete with a wet spot. As I grated the cheese, I tried to convince him to tell me what to do, but he insisted that I tell him what he was telling me to do. As the water started to boil, he sent me an evil grin, and I texted back a bratty eye roll and let that sit while I ate supper. He was excellent dinner company.

After I was done eating, I sent him a picture of my nicely-made bed and got in. Just like he did in the story I was telling him, I pulled up my shirt and down my bra. My nipples were sticking straight up, ready and bright, bright pink. After a few tries, I got a good picture of them and sent it over. I played with my boobs while I waited for the next text to come.

He sent back a try at dirty talk and I rewrote it so it was nastier.

I was conscious of trying not to borrow from scenes I’d already had and written—it was fun to try fiction, to write a fantasy just for him.

It occurred to me that it would be awkward for Sweetie to come home in the middle of this so I called to get her ETA and give her a heads-up. Also I accidentally dialed Mr. Shiny Eyes in the process. #togetherness

Sweetie was a half hour away and I was soaking wet. My fingers slipped around inside my plain flowered undies and inside myself—I was ready for him. There was plenty of time for me to come but I kept losing track of time—texting, playing, texting, playing. It’s kind of magical that I could be that turned on by him even though he’s such a long way away.

Sweetie came in before I was finished but was unfazed—she just closed the bedroom door and went to make herself supper. Mr. Sweetheart asked me where I wanted his cum.

“Well, I tried to swallow for you but you pushed me away and it went all over…”

He texted: “As your reward, I lean in, lick your cum covered tits, then offer you a creamy kiss. :) <3 <3 xoxo”

It was a good reward. I was unsure of the etiquette for ending such an exchange, other than to let him know that I’d come. I told him that next time we’ll have to think of a way to metaphorically snuggle afterwards. I’m excited to write him some more stories.